1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to accounting systems and methods, and more particularly, to accounting methods and machines for effecting accounting control for print jobs.
(As defined herein, a print job is print output from a device that produces a print output, e.g., a copier, a scanner, a facsimile machine, a printer, a multifunction device (MFD) or other suitable image forming device. As defined herein, a print job is also an action by, or a function of, a device that produces a copy-to-file, a print-to-file, a scan-to-file, a facsimile-to-file, and a multifunction device or other suitable image forming device performing the same actions or functions to file.)
2. Description of Related Art
The inventors have recognized that current accounting methods for print devices, e.g., multi function devices (MFD), have been implemented as one-off stand alone methods resulting in methods that do not integrate well and are difficult and time consuming to administer.
Some of the smaller print devices with lower processing capacity and small or no disk memory are unable to administer any form of control on the number of pages marked by the device, and can at best review the usage on a device.
Even if the device were capable of having a sufficient disk memory, since the devices behave as independent entities, each device is unaware of usage accrued on another print device by a particular user or account. Overcoming the lack of awareness of total usage proves challenging when trying to implement user-based limits across a set of print devices. Due to the distributed nature of the accounting (run independently on each print device), users may reach the usage limit on one print device but submit and process a print job on another print device instead, thereby being able to cheat the system.
The inventors have recognized that lack of definite control over the usage limits for print jobs is a problem that is experienced by all types of business and organizations, ranging from small to large entities.